Da Vinci code and the Pope: both missing the point?

I've read the Gardner books that Brown stole from for the skeleton of the "secret" in the book. I've seen the movie. Suddenly, this thought popped into my head. Have we been missing the point for 2000 years?

Was Christ actually human? I mean, he was still the son of God, and capable, with God's help, of miracles. Perhaps the stories have been exaggerated, but there were miracles, I believe. But he was a man. Good, kind, and divine. As, perhaps we all are? and all capable of what Jesus was, capable of the sacrifice, the self-control, and the pure faith in God? Was THAT the point of Jesus, God showing us what we are capable of being? The Gospel of Thomas, I believe, says "lift up a rock, and I am there." Saying that all we need is our faith; and God, and Jeus, will then answer us. If Jesus is purely of God, and removed from humanity, then we need the help of the religous leadership to contact him, and to tell us what is right and wrong, rather then being a "mere" guide to what God is telling us directly if he is one of us.

Is THIS the truth that the Church has obscured?

Was THAT the point of Jesus, God showing us what we are capable of being?

That does make some sense, now that I see it put that way. I grew up in the Assembly of God church..please, hold the snake comments as we had none!..and left at about age 19. Have read the book and Holy Blood, Holy Grail. Not sure if I see fit to declare that Brown stole anything.I would like to read the books you referenced..please let me know what the titles are, as they appear new to me
Peace

I'm pretty sure that was the point. Jesus was human and lived the life he would like all of us to lead as humans. He faced all the same obstacles as we face as humans and demonstrated how one could overcome them. This is what makes His life such an outstanding and powerful example.

Jesus is the Son of God. The Gospel of Thomas was not written by Thomas and is a Gnostic book designed to keep you from the truth.

Originally posted by mytym
I'm pretty sure that was the point. Jesus was human and lived the life he would like all of us to lead as humans. He faced all the same obstacles as we face as humans and demonstrated how one could overcome them. This is what makes His life such an outstanding and powerful example.

Yes, the Son of God - made man. But still the Son of God, are some of you trying to say there was no Divine aspect to this phenomenon? His divinity of course is a matter of faith, so it's all about opinions beyond that.

I don't think the Pope is missing the point, as a matter of faith, you cannot separate the divinity of Christ from his human nature. I do think the DaVinci code has missed that point, but being that it's only a work of fiction, it's rather irrelevant.

[edit on 5/31/2006 by Relentless]

I never read that book but I will someday.

I usually respect other religeions and poeple I treat everybody the same.

Originally posted by Relentless
Yes, the Son of God - made man. But still the Son of God, are some of you trying to say there was no Divine aspect to this phenomenon?

From His own teachings, if people take it literal, which Christians say they do, it is more than implied that he is on equal footing with human kind, which makes us God in this case.

peace

dalen

Originally posted by Relentless
but being that it's only a work of fiction, it's rather irrelevant.

Wise words Relentless. Very wise!

The DaVinci code is FICTION. Made up. Pretend. Entertainment.
And from what I hear of the movie reviews ... dull entertainment.

Relentless:
I can't speak for anyone else, but I'm saying the Son of God in human form in every way. Often people make the assumption that due to who He was, living the life He led was easier for Him than it would be for the rest of us, but it wasn't.

The miracle is inside you; no need to go too far searching for it.

I have posted a link to a site that I use. I hope this will help answer questions for those who really want to examine who Jesus is and the fiction found in the Da Vinci Code.

gotquestions.org...

Originally posted by mytym
Relentless:
I can't speak for anyone else, but I'm saying the Son of God in human form in every way. Often people make the assumption that due to who He was, living the life He led was easier for Him than it would be for the rest of us, but it wasn't.

Thanks for clarifying that.

Actually, I view Christ's divinity as having made it harder than any other human to endure what he did. God is infinite, therefore everything we are capable of feeling is infinite in him. We cannot comprehend the love of God compared to what we know as love, as it is compounded to infinity. By the same token, the pain of transgressions against God are infinitely painful to God and therefore Christ, to an extent we cannot understand. What Christ did and endured on this earth as the divine Son of God, with the mind of God, in the body of a real human man would have been inexplicably painful both physically and mentally.

That's the way I see it anyway.

What I meant was that even though he was the son of God, Jesus was no more divine then we are (until after death). God placed him here, as a human, to demonstrate what humans can be if they believe in themselves. I have found, historically, that many power-hungry and cruel individuals (both small and large scale) often have a powerful self-loathing. That, I believe, is what God was trying to combat; showing us what we can be if we let ourselves be...and many are unable to listen, it seems.

As for the Gospel of Thomas, I got from it that it was merely saying talk to Jesus, and let him talk to your heart; don't let a priest tell you what your heart tells you is wrong. Priests are just humans as well, as prone to mis-interpreting the will of God as the rest of us are.

Although, who knows; I am starting to believe, as some Hindus believe, that the mind of God is far to large for a human to understand more then slightly.

These things that you learn in church have been passed down though century and people start to believe its true. lets say the muslims and chirstians they both believe in one god but they have differ ways to express b/c someone took the real facts and changed it.....so yea the church has the ability to do something like this

this is what got me.....one of the ten commandments "thou shall not lie" and the church is breaking their own rule.

Originally posted by dbrandt
I have posted a link to a site that I use. I hope this will help answer questions for those who really want to examine who Jesus is and the fiction found in the Da Vinci Code.

Here is are a three far more reliable sources, dbrandt:

E-sword
Bible Gateway
Blue Letter Bible

gotquestions.org...

There is some very chauvinistic insistence on ignoring what the bible tells us about femininity at one page on your little reference site--I'm certain you merely overlooked it when you examined their words yourself, right?

Because the idea of 'sacred feminine' is all through there--forget the propaganda that you're so often promoting-if you love us for the sake of God then why not let God lead you in your service? Do you expect to have to see the literal phrase 'sacred feminine' vouched for by Elijah in order to detect it among all the stories about men?

It's just another version of the sort of anti-war effort we know as 'just say no to the new age' campaign...and there is no longer any excuse to believe rubbish when we can read and have access to a bible.

This, however, has nothing to do with the DaVinci Code. Personally, I do not think Christ had children--mortal children seem awful temporary when in fact He came to restore our spiritual lives as His children. I also think that, considering what His ultimate task actually was, He would be less than loving to acquire a wife and children only so that they could watch Him die the worst death imaginable. For reasons that children could never understand. That's selfish, born of ego, and we are told He was born without sin which means he was the only soul who entered this live without the handicap of the ego. But these are things I feel to be true--yet personally they matter nothing to me as far as dictating what I think I must believe. It doesn't matter! He is alive! and that is all that our trust need rest upon.

Having children in marriage would in no way disqualify Him from His throne--He gave up His life, His soul--that is what won the world. Sex is not a sin as a sheer act and marriage is ordained of God, ideally.

Mary Magdalene is a vital part of the whole message. She is not the only one but there is a feminine energy within God just as there is a masculine one. Read Genesis
for verification. Made them both, male and female, in His image.

How did you arrive on this earth? Cabbage patch? No--you have a mother. Do you think that God is so incongruent that He would be some sort of spiritual male gender who was not only devoid of that other half necessary to make the whole but even so cruel to forbid and condemn any human who dare consider something beyond the christian fashion of the day?

The reason these issues are arising is because it is the time that has been appointed for this to occur--you read Revelation--the bride is ready and you'd better have your candles trimmed and filled because the signs are all around you--and the world is waking up to these truths. They may be crude and new but they still make more sense in the grand scheme of things and so I'm inclined to equate reason and order with God rather than demonic forces. You wait for the antichrist rather than the bride and I guarantee there will be no banquet at the 'anti-christ' ball.

Originally posted by The Parasite
These things that you learn in church have been passed down though century and
this is what got me.....one of the ten commandments "thou shall not lie" and the church is breaking their own rule.

Actually the church is breaking God's rules (just about all of them) and resisting reconciliation by creating their own 2000 year legacy of rules (which are far less user-friendly, sensible, kind, or fair than what God said).

Forget about the group thing--its a dead end.

Originally posted by The Observer
Suddenly, this thought popped into my head. Have we been missing the point for 2000 years?

I really think we have. I think it was intended, though--but there is a season for everything and now it's time to find some things out.

Was Christ actually human?

I can share with you what I currently understand--only as an additional perspective that might help you find the truth out for yourself. Because that is the best way to know it is truth. Find it yourself, rather than asking men.

I understand it more in the sense of elements of creation: fire, earth, water, and air.

Fire is the Holy Spirit and the fire originates with God the Father who is all the energy that exists. And the earth is the dust Adam was made with--basically this is the portrayal of our spiritual maternal (such as a womb or fertile field--a piece of fruit whose seed is within itself) and God's breath of Life (air) is breathed into the dust and
the part of God which is electricity jump starts the human heart with electricity which then pumps the freshly created soul that is in our blood created from the mixture of earth and air.

So Jesus was born in just the same fashion as anyone else--by a divine mixing of earth and air.

But He was born without an ego or a delusional reality of being independent in any way from the rest of Creation.

He was a human no different than any of us. But God (who is pure Spirit) put His Spirit without measure into Jesus's seed/soul/whatever. His potential, I should say.
He was fully vested with God's Spirit by the time He died--He was ordained for the purpose of being a literal 'right hand man.' How can a purely spiritual entity ever be understood by a creature that has lost all ability to live in that realm--when it cannot even perceive that there is something there to perceive. So now there is a 'go between' that crosses from the physical realm to the Kingdom--halfway on each side yet wholly in both, as well.

But all of God the Father was not contained within the soul of Jesus Christ. How could that be? Certainly God is just as Paul says: all things.

I mean, he was still the son of God, and capable, with God's help, of miracles. Perhaps the stories have been exaggerated, but there were miracles, I believe.

You know I think a lot like that-- I also think that we probably do not conceive of 'miracle' in the same degree as they did 2000 years ago. The important thing to learn from the idea of miracles is that are essentially 'God making the impossible, possible.' Whatever that might entail at any given time in our history, the important thing we must know is that it is something we can rely on, without fail. But then religions really tear that idea apart by creating new things to fear and doubt in order to get close to God or go to heaven or be really well liked, etc..

But he was a man. Good, kind, and divine. As, perhaps we all are?

As we all are promised to be. Each in our own time which God has determined long ago. Each man, but individually. It has taken a while because it is a long wait when your God is going to give everyone 100% chance of success. Regardless.

and all capable of what Jesus was, capable of the sacrifice, the self-control, and the pure faith in God?

Yes, and His further sacrifice is the fact that He donated all the work He did on the human side for the promise of our perpetual life. He made it about a million times easier for us to become 'holy men.'

Was THAT the point of Jesus, God showing us what we are capable of being?

I'm really in agreement with all these things you are saying.

The Gospel of Thomas, I believe, says "lift up a rock, and I am there." Saying that all we need is our faith; and God, and Jeus, will then answer us.

I think it does--and I think it also means that God is all things--and is the force that powers all things--He is the all in all.

If Jesus is purely of God, and removed from humanity, then we need the help of the religous leadership to contact him, and to tell us what is right and wrong, rather then being a "mere" guide to what God is telling us directly if he is one of us.

EXACTLY! And He cannot be removed from humanity--how can He bridge a gap if He stays only on one side? And the side that requires no assistance, as well?!?!

Is THIS the truth that the Church has obscured?

I think we, the human race, obscured this for ourselves. Because that's the way it was planned to be, for reasons and purposes that we will eventually fully comprehend. We are the source of the satans that tempt us--the hierchy of the higher realms cannot be guessed at and we are just babies so we are still basically being taught with 'crash test dummy' devils--our own delusional ideas of ego, personal gain, and the possibility that we can make or break our chances with God.

The main delusion is the general idea that religion is desired for us by God, that He requires we follow it and keep each other within it, and that if we don't do it according to man-made plans we'll go to hell. That agenda is obsolete--to believe that there is still something to be completed as far as our rescue from death--it seems to me to be denying the victory that was made on our behalf.

These things should not be fooling us because they are directly discounted in the bible, yet religion lacks the spirit that leads our souls to know these things--so it causes us fear and anxiety about venturing out solely on the arms of God--we won't need them anymore and we'll see through the whole charade...etc.
2 Peter 1:20

Fear not; only believe

Originally posted by The Observer
Although, who knows; I am starting to believe, as some Hindus believe, that the mind of God is far to large for a human to understand more then slightly.

No doubt~~!

And even the little we can handle must be given to us by God, almost like spoon-fed.

God is so BIG.

Originally posted by The Observer
Was Christ actually human? I mean, he was still the son of God, and capable, with God's help, of miracles. Perhaps the stories have been exaggerated, but there were miracles, I believe. But he was a man. Good, kind, and divine. As, perhaps we all are? and all capable of what Jesus was, capable of the sacrifice, the self-control, and the pure faith in God? Was THAT the point of Jesus, God showing us what we are capable of being? The Gospel of Thomas, I believe, says "lift up a rock, and I am there." Saying that all we need is our faith; and God, and Jeus, will then answer us. If Jesus is purely of God, and removed from humanity, then we need the help of the religous leadership to contact him, and to tell us what is right and wrong, rather then being a "mere" guide to what God is telling us directly if he is one of us.

Is THIS the truth that the Church has obscured?

actually this makes alot of sence and something i believe in aswell. i believe jesus was as human as you and me, but he had tremendous faith in what he was doing.

What is GOD...a name givin by man and created by man so literaly the church is breaking their own rules...what if we accepted death and death not going to another place...there wouldnt be a GOD and also if they knew what we know then GOD would only be a myth and laghted at know adays